『Congratulations, Appreciator. You have unlocked a brand-new Compendium entry and gained 1 free attribute point.』
『Hundred Eyes (Aberration): an aberrant creature that loves to collect eyes. It will devour any creature that comes near and take their eyes.』
『Danger level: F-rank』
『Weakness: unknown』
『Note: aberration-type monsters harbor intense malice toward this world. Appreciator, please choose your friends with care.』
Every time he woke, the system notice would be the first thing to appear before Fang Tian's eyes. As if afraid he might fail to connect the dots, the system had even "thoughtfully" attached an illustration —— a wooden door blanketed in densely packed eyes, so that the first thing Fang Tian did on waking was relive that heavily mind-polluting image all over again.
The good news was, he'd gained 1 free attribute point, and outside the sky had brightened.
"You're awake."
The moment Senior spoke, a Favorability interface popped up at her side.
『Hao Xue』
『Favorability: 5 (she has developed a liking for you; at Favorability 10, part of her Compendium will unlock)』
Fang Tian remembered that as his consciousness sank into the dark, someone had laid a hand on his shoulder.
Now he was back in Senior's dorm again, which meant that at the critical moment Senior had stepped in and pulled him out of the fire?
"Qingkong is, on the whole, safe, but there are some zones absolutely off-limits to ordinary students. The student council has written the relevant locations into the regulations. But considering it was your first day registering, with no time to read them carefully, you ended up in real danger......"
The morning sun fell on Hao Xue's face. She lowered her lashes, her voice low and gentle. "I'm sorry. This was a failure on my part."
"It's all right."
Fang Tian sat up in bed, his face still pale.
More than Hao Xue's apology, his head was crammed full of questions to ask.
Since coming to Qingkong, a door to a new world had opened before him — and on the other side lay a world that belonged to monsters, ghosts, and demons.
Taking a beating lying down wasn't his style. The famous dreamer, the Anti-Mage, had a celebrated line: just wait till I get back up, and I'll shark the lot of you.
Hundred Eyes, huh. This grudge — I, Fang Tian, am marking it down today.
"Senior Hao, what is Basement Level 3 of Building C?"
The ban in the regulations had been set by the student council, and Senior Hao was its vice president; she ought to know the school's dangerous zones inside out.
"The morgue."
"So Senior Feng Jie is basically the morgue's caretaker?"
"You could put it that way. Whenever a new corpse is brought in, he has to spend the whole night busy down on the third basement level. He only took you for a creep who preys on lone girls and wanted to give you a scare — he had no intention of harming you. You were just unlucky, and happened to run into a corpse undergoing aberration."
So that was it.
Fang Tian fell into thought. Even as he questioned Senior, he choked down his nausea and called up the Hundred Eyes Compendium entry. The bracket after the name had to denote the monster's species — in a single day of enrollment, he'd already met three utterly different kinds of monster.
Brother Jie was similar to a ghost, but could nudge physical objects, if only slightly.
Putting Senior Hao's words together with the Compendium, an aberration was the product of a corpse undergoing aberration. The system had gone out of its way to stress an aberration's intense malice toward the world, which suggested that things with this attribute were, more often than not, highly aggressive monsters.
Senior Hao, meanwhile, was a third attribute, distinct from both aberrations and ghosts. She looked no different from a human and could be seen by ordinary people too — though, given what he'd suffered the first time his Sanity hit zero, Fang Tian suspected Senior Hao's true form might be pretty terrifying as well.
"Senior, could you tell me a bit more about aberration?"
"You're far too curious." Hao Xue frowned. "You'd best never have anything to do with them, ever."
"The way I see it, sooner or later I'm bound to run into them again."
Fang Tian's tone was flat and certain. With his talent for planting flags, sooner or later he'd cultivate the skill of the instant-cast jinx.
And if only to complete the quest series of the campus's Seven Wonders, he'd have to make another trip to Basement Level 3 of Building C eventually.
"So rather than live in fear, I'd rather find a way to deal with them."
"You still want to deal with them?" Hao Xue stared at Fang Tian in astonishment. "With your current skills, even the weakest aberration could finish you off without breaking a sweat."
As she saw it, apart from being able to see ghosts, Fang Tian had no talent whatsoever; for a weak human, "being able to see" was, if anything, a burden.
"As I am now, maybe I really am no match for an aberration. But Senior Hao, have you ever heard a certain famous saying?"
Fang Tian paused a good while before continuing under Hao Xue's puzzled gaze, "The great Italian philosopher Diavolo once said: a person's growth lies in overcoming their own immature past. In other words, as long as I start working hard now, sooner or later even aberrations will fall by my hand."
The great Italian philosopher?
Hao Xue was stumped.
Fang Tian's manner as he spoke was unshakably firm, yet she had never once heard of anyone named Diavolo — she was certain that, at least back when she was in high school, no such philosopher had ever appeared in the textbooks.
"Generally speaking, after a person dies in an accident, there's a high chance they linger in the world as a ghost."
Hao Xue, somewhat swayed by the Italian philosopher's words, explained, "Most ghosts are harmless. But in very rare cases, some corpses undergo a change and become what you saw down on the third basement level. Still, as long as you know the Qingkong regulations by heart and strictly obey the bans written in them, you won't run into them on campus again."
"Understood."
Fang Tian nodded. Thanks to that aberration, on his very first day at Qingkong he'd set himself a new goal.
He flipped out of bed, silently intoning in his heart, "System, add Stamina."
Before going looking for trouble with aberrations, Fang Tian felt he ought to first bring his stamina up to a normal person's level. Watching his Stamina panel climb to 4, his mood lifted somewhat.
This single point of Stamina meant he was one step closer to the small goal of becoming a One-Punch Man.
"What are your plans now?"
Hao Xue asked.
"Exercise."
Day had finally broken. He'd exercise, and while he was at it study the system's functions carefully — Fang Tian made his decision.
Before heading out, he noticed Senior Hao's interface had changed a little.
『Hao Xue』
『Favorability: 7』
"Don't forget to read the regulations."
Hao Xue reminded him at his back.
Taking the elevator down to the first floor, sunlight spilled across the Qingkong campus. The moment he stepped out, Fang Tian heard someone loudly reciting English vocabulary; the semi-transparent figures had all vanished. Walking down the steps, he was struck by a sudden sense of having returned to human society.
At the same time, a pale-blue dialogue box surfaced before his eyes once more.
『New quest available: "Run, Weakling" (Beginner). Recognizing your own weakness is the first step toward strength. It's time to conquer the weakling you are.』
『Quest objective: complete a 3,000-meter morning run three days in a row.』